A Brooklyn federal judge yesterday ruled the National Parks Service illegally booted two historic 19th century buildings from parkland protection so the city could sell them to private developers as part of the Brooklyn Bridge Park project, according to an article in today's edition of The New York Post by Rich Calder.

Judge Eric Vitalianio ruled that the feds violated proper procedures, such as replacing the property with new park space, the article continued, adding that "the scathing 14-page decision devastates the city's embattled plan to turn over the roofless Tobacco Warehouse to a DUMBO arts group, St. Ann's Warehouse, for a $15 million project to bring community events and live theater to the park."

The ruling backs a preliminary injunction that was issued in April and also protects the Civil War-era Empire Stores site, the article said, adding that a lawyer for the city said the city may appeal.

St. Ann's Warehouse, the Brooklyn theater whose versatile and cavernous playing space became a magnet for New York City and overseas acting troupes, is confronting homelessness, according to a recent article in The New York Times by Patrick Healy, as it is scheduled to lose its 14,000-square-foot home next May because of commercial development and it had thought its long-term future was secure when the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation approved its plans to move across the street after renovating the old Tobacco Warehouse on the Dumbo neighborhood's waterfront.

Some civic groups in Brooklyn, however, opposed handing over that "landmark ruin" that has no roof to any single organization and in April won a court decision on a technical issue that probably will preserve the Tobacco Warehouse as an open neighborhood site for the next few years, at least, the article said.

St. Ann's proposal had as its centerpiece a 10,250-square foot theater that would have sustained its reputation as a rare New York City space that allows ensembles to configure a high-ceilinged, column-free and technically sophisticated room to their needs, the article continued, adding that "along the companies that have played St. Ann's in recent years are Kneehigh Theater from England, the National Theater of Scotland, and the downtown Wooster Group.

St. Ann's warehouse was founded by Susan Feldman in 1979 at a historic church site in Brooklyn Heights, and then opened its current home in an old spice-milling factory in 2001 whose owner is now development it with plan s for an apartment complex and a middle school.

"Jim Walden, a lawyer for the Brooklyn Heights Association and others fighting to keep the Tobacco Warehouse as is, said that the neighborhood groups admired the work of St. Ann's and supported keeping the theater in Dumbo. At the same time, the board wanted to maintain the Tobacco Warehouse as the kind of site that has featured photo and art exhibitions, hip hop and food festivals, and even a memorable 'Macbeth' presented by St. Ann's in 2008 on a two-story, roofless set," the article said.

A federal judge ruled in April that the National Park Service broke the law when it redrew the lines of the old Empire Fulton Ferry State Park without public hearings - a process that led to the Tobacco Warehouse and another building's being left outside of the parks' borders. (The Empire Fulton Ferry State Park has since been subsumed by the Brooklyn Bridge Park). The park service and the city, which were defendants in the case, had argued that the two buildings had been put within those borders by mistake, and that neither building was eligible for inclusion in the parkland, anyway, because they were not suitable for outdoor recreation.